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E: double post.
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Nov 27, 2015 20:06
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QuarkJets posted:
lol  I hope jrod comes back since he's apparently the only person I'm allowed to insult when he says something completely idiotic.
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Nov 27, 2015 21:09
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hey let's all buy a ship and then meet up on the ship
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Nov 27, 2015 23:10
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cross posting, very relevant and funny anthonypants posted:feel-good story of the holiday season http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/3ucp8y/i_was_beat_up_by_left_anarchists_in_greece/
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Nov 27, 2015 23:12
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:cross posting, very relevant and funny quote:It hurt really bad and I remember yelling "you're breaking the NAP" and things like that. "Stop initiating force against me." Then they kicked me around on the ground in the hallway, before they took my camera and threw me outside. I was crying and stuff, I just sat there. I was in shock because it was so sudden. Looking back there were warning signs though. Man, I didn't know I needed a good laugh until I read this, I don't even care that its probably bullshit. It's been a rough week so thank you Ron Paul. You're doing God's work.
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Nov 27, 2015 23:32
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:cross posting, very relevant and funny lmao, this is their logo: 
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Nov 28, 2015 00:16
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So I've been on a bit of a kick doing research on Thomas Sowell lately. He's been getting referenced a lot by An-Caps as of late in part because he's a black man who is outspoken against Affirmative Action. Unlike Rothbard or HHH you can't simply type his name into google with the word 'racist' appended to it to get a greatest hits collection of the worst things they've ever said, but I've got a few for anyone who cares:quote:To find anything comparable to crowds' euphoric reactions to Obama, you would have to go back to old newsreels of German crowds in the 1930s, with their adulation of their fuehrer, Adolf Hitler. With hindsight, we can look back on those people with pity, knowing now how many of them would be led to their deaths by the man they idolized.  quote:Global warming' is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible. quote:Would you bet your paycheck on a weather forecast for tomorrow? If not, then why should this country bet billions on global warming predictions that have even less foundation? I, an economist with absolutely no formal scientific training, believe that global warming is not real becau- *wet fart noises* quote:The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive. What is it with libertarian authors and decrying the ivory tower university system while themselves being tenured professors? As far as I can tell Sowell has not worked a day outside academia since the 1950's and was only able to attend university by virtue of the G.I. Bill for his draft service in Korea. quote:In the summer of 1959, as in the summer of 1957, I worked as a clerk-typist in the headquarters of the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington. The people I worked for were very nice and I grew to like them. One day, a man had a heart attack at around 5 PM, on the sidewalk outside the Public Health Service. He was taken inside to the nurse's room, where he was asked if he was a government employee. If he were, he would have been eligible to be taken to a medical facility there. Unfortunately, he was not, so a phone call was made to a local hospital to send an ambulance. By the time this ambulance made its way through miles of Washington rush-hour traffic, the man was dead. He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors. Nothing so dramatized for me the nature of a bureaucracy and its emphasis on procedures, rather than results. Is there some sort of french or german word for pulling the wrong lesson from a situation? Because that would apply here I think. quote:It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it. Famous economist is too stupid to realize that every other country on earth somehow manages this. Also that the US already has a byzantine private insurance bureaucracy. quote:It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. No, I don't think he's talking about citigroup. quote:A shortage is a sign that somebody is keeping the price artificially lower than it would be if supply and demand were allowed to operate freely. iPhone 4's sell out? I guess apple is intentionally keeping the price down. Your country is undergoing a famine while still exporting food? STOP GIVING PEOPLE CHEAP RICE! quote:A shortage is a sign that somebody is keeping the price artificially lower than it would be if supply and demand were allowed to operate freely. This is only factually true because of churches. Utah for example has the highest rate of charitable donations because mormons give 10% of their income or more to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you start talking about charities like feeding the homeless, medical research etc the numbers swing wildly in democrats favor. So yeah, whenever a libertarian talks to you about Thomas Sowell, just remember that he is pretty much just a useful idiot for them.
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Nov 28, 2015 00:26
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And while I'm on a libertarian kick today I had a thought occur to me. What is the libertarian take on Involuntary Russian Roulette? Consider. I wake up one day and decide I'm bored and want to spice up my life. I go select one of my four hundred revolvers (you can never be too well defended after all) and load a single bullet. I then go across the hall, knock on my neighbor's door, spin the chamber and pull the trigger. The gun clicks, she lives another day but the question remains, have I violated the NAP? I haven't inflicted any direct harm on her. In our current society there would absolutely be an argument for psychological harm and/or probably attempted murder or reckless endangerment, but this liberland. Surely Libertarians aren't going to extend the NAP to merely hurting someone's feelings or scaring them, and really what is attempted murder? Do they give a nobel prize for attempted chemistry? Does it become worse if there are two bullets in the gun? Or five? This is absurd sure, but really it is just a variant on what would happen every day in liberland. If I'm driving down the road at 120 miles an hour is that aggression? Or does it only become aggressive when someone is turned into a fine paste by my kickin rad War Rig. This goes back to my point from the last time Jrod left (btw, seriously dude, poo poo or get off the pot with your posts) that anything past the most basic aspect of his ideology is completely arbitrary, which undercuts the universality argument. You could make a logical and convincing argument for both, and neither is the obviously 'correct' answer.
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Nov 28, 2015 00:42
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I guess it all depends on whether you consider "reckless endangerment" to be initiatory aggression in Ancapia. Since there's no one authority to say whether it is or isn't, and whether what you did does or doesn't qualify, it's probably going to be up to her and whatever murderous brutes she's paying protection money to think. Call it a coin toss between you getting shot the next day and them going "Eh, you're fine aren't you? Make sure you pay on time next month." So yeah, completely arbitrary. Even if Jrod comes back swinging with what he considers a definitive answer it will still be arbitrary, because he has no way to force his definition on everyone else in Ancapia.
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Nov 28, 2015 00:58
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So in that reddit thread, someone posted excerpts from Lenin's A Liberal Professor on Equality. This part stuck out at me:quote:The puzzled reader may ask: how could a learned liberal professor have forgotten these elementary axioms familiar to anybody who has read any exposition of the views of socialism? The answer is simple: the personal qualities of present-day professors are such that we may find among them even exceptionally stupid people like Tugan. But the social status of professors in bourgeois society is such that only those are allowed to hold such posts who sell science to serve the interests of capital, and agree to utter the most fatuous nonsense, the most unscrupulous drivel and twaddle against the socialists. The bourgeoisie will forgive the professors all this as long as they go on “abolishing” socialism. Does this seem... familiar to anyone else? Maybe reminiscent of some opinions on academics having an interest in promoting the state which jrod parroted from libertarian scholars working at public universities...?
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Nov 28, 2015 01:01
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Caros posted:This is absurd sure, but really it is just a variant on what would happen every day in liberland. If I'm driving down the road at 120 miles an hour is that aggression? Or does it only become aggressive when someone is turned into a fine paste by my kickin rad War Rig. The road is privately owned so anyone who drives on it has either accepted the EULA or is trespassing and thus can be punished however the owner's DRO directs. In either case, driving faster than the owner allows is a violation of his property rights. The speed limits will be set by supply and demand as commuters balance safety versus speed and roads compete to offer them the most desirable traffic rules.
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Nov 28, 2015 01:07
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VitalSigns posted:The road is privately owned so anyone who drives on it has either accepted the EULA or is trespassing and thus can be punished however the owner's DRO directs. I paid two gold ingots an axle to drive on your road, sir, and now you tell me I must limit myself to 25mph in residential zones? This is thuggery! 
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Nov 28, 2015 01:14
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Caros posted:And while I'm on a libertarian kick today I had a thought occur to me. What is the libertarian take on Involuntary Russian Roulette? I've seen Jrod argue that sufficiently frightening someone is good enough to be considered as a violation of the NAP, and when asked further he basically said "I don't know guys, let's not get hung up on the specifics and just agree that it'll all work out for the best"
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Nov 28, 2015 01:31
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GunnerJ posted:So in that reddit thread, someone posted excerpts from Lenin's A Liberal Professor on Equality. This part stuck out at me: Yeah, that is...interesting. It wouldn't be the first time they've tried co-opting rhetoric from another ideology.
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Nov 28, 2015 01:58
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paragon1 posted:Yeah, that is...interesting. It wouldn't be the first time they've tried co-opting rhetoric from another ideology. There's a forbes article about Freidrich Engels that pisses me off to no end
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Nov 28, 2015 02:05
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paragon1 posted:Yeah, that is...interesting. It wouldn't be the first time they've tried co-opting rhetoric from another ideology. 
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Nov 28, 2015 02:11
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paragon1 posted:Yeah, that is...interesting. It wouldn't be the first time they've tried co-opting rhetoric from another ideology. Whenever libertarians seem to echo Marxism I can't always tell when it's co-opting and when it's just being cut from a similar cloth. I mean a lot of heterodox ideologies can find it convenient to claim that educational institutions are biased against them because the powers that be have a vested interest in only allowing people who support them to teach. Sometimes it's even true! The spectacle of libertarians who are tenured professors at public universities arguing that academics at state-funded schools are all just propagandists for the state seems to fit Lenin's description a lot better then their own theory fits leftists in academia (who, while supporting "a state", more often than not have a lot of deeply rooted problems with the actually existing state that pays them). But I mean, there's examples of this all over the place. It's eerie. I've mentioned Rand's historical narrative of the emergence of capitalist society being remarkably similar to what you'll find in the Communist Manifesto (this seems like something absorbed by osmosis during her time in the USSR). There's also Hoppe's narrative of the emergence of the democratic state which basically starts with "primitive anarcho-capitalism". And do you think any of them realize what "no we don't have real capitalism, just crony capitalism" sounds exactly like? And just what the gently caress is going on here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Block#Punishment_of_government_employees quote:Block has written two papers about punishment of those engaging in "statist, governmental or other gangster activity". Block argues that there should be "a presumption that all government employees are guilty of a crime against humanity," though he notes that this presumption can be rebutted in many cases, such as that of U.S. Congressman and Mises Institute Senior Fellow Ron Paul. Block examines issues like restitution of land taken through eminent domain and possible retribution against politicians, IRS employees, and others who cooperated in governmental activity. He describes rules by which libertarian "Nuremberg Trials" might operate. He's basically outlining a libertarian revolutionary tribunal for the purging of ruling class. "Up against the wall, comrade." 
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Nov 28, 2015 02:54
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OK I'm going straight the gently caress down this rabbit hole because it is hilarious.quote:State employment is not a sufficient condition to establish criminality since there are many ways to work for government, and still be able to rebut this presumption. For example, take the position of professor at a state-sponsored university working to promote liberty in the classroom, while still teaching the subject matter. A little on the nose, Wally! (Reading further: So, so, so much of this revolves around defending his position as a professor at a public university that I get the feeling he wrote this 100% to show why he's not a hypocrite. You know he's heard about it about a million times just by how fixated he is on precisely why and how libertarians may accept employment at public schools.) Oh poo poo, this is where his awesome concentration camp hero story comes from. Christ, leading with his own case for self-exoneration makes this so much more hosed up somehow. Christ, just how much of this is him making excuses for their hypocrisy? quote:Consider the case of a long time libertarian professor who donated a large sum of money to a state university.10 We begin our analysis with the presumption that he is guilty of a crime against libertarian law. How could this be rebutted? One possibility is that if immediately after this was done, full freedom broke out in the entire world, and it was due to this monetary contribution. We do not inquire into the causal antecedents of such an occurrence; we merely stipulate it. But, if so, and if the donor knew or had good reason to expect that this would be the result of his charity,11 he would declared innocent of any crime (indeed, he would deserve some sort of medal.) So, 10 and 11 are footnotes. 10 says: "There is also a parallel case of a very wealthy person who once ran for high political office as a libertarian, and yet donated an even larger amount to a state theater. In order to protect the guilty, I do not mention their names, out of concern for the long number of years of faithful service each has contributed to the libertarian movement." This is almost catty. Yes, as it turns out this is a long convoluted excuse for why it's OK for libertarians like Block and others he admires to consort with the state, you can check it out for yourself but I will just paste the punchline: quote:Better that any non-statist possess this [i.e., government-owned] wealth than that the thieving state continue to do so. Yes, of course, there will arise the question of whether and to whom and how these monies are to be returned to their rightful owners.21 But this complication cannot be allowed to get in the way of appreciating the primordial moral fact that the state has no legitimate claim to this wealth. For context, he's talking about Paul accepting matching campaign finance funds from the government. The function of these revolutionary tribunals is becoming even more and more sinister, which I didn't think was possible: quote:In my view, it is entirely proper for a libertarian music or chemistry professor to work for a state university not because he uses his classes to promote liberty, and also not because if one wants to teach music or chemistry at the university level, one has virtually no choice but to work for a state-owned or state-subsidized institution. There is always a choice. He could commit suicide. No, my justification is entirely different. I think it is justified to work for the state if you are taking something from them, but not if you are giving something to them, on net balance. Now, of course, the libertarian music or chemistry professor is giving the state university something: music or chemistry lessons to the students. But, he is also giving them libertarianism, if only by “osmosis,” that is, “taking” something from them. Holy poo poo: quote:Objection 5. So, voting for candidates other than Ron Paul (for other than strategic reasons) would be criminal? Voting for Ron Paul is a plenary indulgence, says Pope Block. Absolute insanity.
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Nov 28, 2015 03:26
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Starting to suspect Block might be a not very good person.GunnerJ posted:And do you think any of them realize what "no we don't have real capitalism, just crony capitalism" sounds exactly like? I tend to follow up those statements with "Well who does have real capitalism then?" I never get a satisfactory response.
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Nov 28, 2015 05:24
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I've never understood the Libertarian obsession in pretending their hypocrisy isn't hypocritical, rather than simply acknowledging their preferred system hasn't been implemented and they still need to function within the current system. It's loving hilarious seeing the excuses they make to pretend it's not the case. I wonder if this and the outlook of sovcits comes from the same place. That if we pretend our bullshit has power, it eventually will. See also:quote:It hurt really bad and I remember yelling "you're breaking the NAP" and things like that. "Stop initiating force against me." Then they kicked me around on the ground in the hallway, before they took my camera and threw me outside. I was crying and stuff, I just sat there. I was in shock because it was so sudden. Looking back there were warning signs though. Though technically, given he was in their building when the force was initiated, it wasn't actually a violation of the NAP.
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Nov 28, 2015 05:35
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I've found that you can figure out which flavor of garbage an An-Cap is by how they support an absolutist adherence to NAP when confronted with the absurdist "Knife Juggler Problem" and a single follow-up. The "Knife Juggler" problem is a metaphor for risky behaviors that can generate suitably negative mortal consequences- pollution, producing child-raping sociopaths et al. If you adhere to NAP and suggest that you would "walk away" from the Knife Juggler, you're a provincialist that would either 1- adhere to any sufficiently acceptable philosophy that allows you to imbibe drugs in peace, or 2- a passive-aggressive crypto-fascist that only wants to live in comfort with you and a small pack of (well armed) homeostatic confidants. If you adhere to NAP and suggest that you would "protect" from the Knife Juggler with knife-armor, you're a techno-utopian who would 1- lean in to any problem hoping that you'll cure every problem with post-scarcity, up to and including death 2- require mind-reading and/or future-determining powers that would make 1984 blush. If you adhere to NAP and suggest that you would "charge" the Knife Juggler for their behavior, you're a fool that either 1- believes that you should be able to buy off someone else's suffering and/or death 2- are a full-blown fascist that supports a constant state of violent reaction to allow the mighty to rule. If you admit a minor amount of relativity to NAP and the subsequent interventions, then we have some room to discuss as intellectuals.
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Nov 28, 2015 05:44
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It's amazing how well Ron Paul conned these people, really. I recall reading that he was perfectly happy to direct government benefits to his district; he'd just vote "no" on the result.
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Nov 28, 2015 05:54
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StandardVC10 posted:It's amazing how well Ron Paul conned these people, really. If you look at Ron Paul's voting records he's one of the most right-leaning people in Congress, ever. Libertarians are supposedly socially liberal but their adoration for Ron Paul speaks volumes to the contrary.
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Nov 28, 2015 06:04
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paragon1 posted:Starting to suspect Block might be a not very good person. I'm also a big fan of "Then why the gently caress do you keep ascribing all these tremendous successes to something that doesn't exist." Gerund posted:If you adhere to NAP and suggest that you would "walk away" from the Knife Juggler, you're a provincialist that would either 1- adhere to any sufficiently acceptable philosophy that allows you to imbibe drugs in peace, or 2- a passive-aggressive crypto-fascist that only wants to live in comfort with you and a small pack of (well armed) homeostatic confidants. I can't help feel like what you meant to say was homoerotic.
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Nov 28, 2015 06:40
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Caros posted:And while I'm on a libertarian kick today I had a thought occur to me. What is the libertarian take on Involuntary Russian Roulette? Libertarianism works as long as you don't need specifics. Then everything falls apart. The problem with the NAP is that it is a philosophy that sounds nice, until you come to question what it means to initiate aggression against another person. After all, what is aggression? A miserable little pile of secrets? See, one of the reasons why our laws end up being so complex is that our laws have to be very specific and need to explain how we should handle various scenarios. We need to define our terms very narrowly, or else the law gets thrown away as being overly broad. So, we need to think about what is an aggressive action. And then we need to think about actions that aren't aggressive, per se, but could have serious and negative impacts on others. For example, I would argue that driving my car while intoxicated is not an aggressive action. A key element of aggression is that I'm intending to hurt someone, and I'm not trying to hurt anyone! I'm just trying to get home while drunk as gently caress. Well, we would want to ban that behavior because IT'S REALLY loving DANGEROUS AND IT IS A TERRIBLE IDEA AND IT COULD KILL PEOPLE! But... it's not aggressive. Which means we now have rules beyond the NAP, which means the NAP is not a sufficient guiding principal. Or else, you would have to expand aggression to such an absurd degree that it basically becomes meaningless, and I could have you busted for violating the NAP because you made me consider my mortality.
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Nov 28, 2015 06:44
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Well, there's the third option which is to go "DUIs are aggression by the state, the destruction wrought by drunk driving is the part of the price we pay for a free society.", but most libertarians have an interest in not appearing quite that callous.
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Nov 28, 2015 06:58
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paragon1 posted:Well, there's the third option which is to go "DUIs are aggression by the state, the destruction wrought by drunk driving is the part of the price we pay for a free society.", but most libertarians have an interest in not appearing quite that callous. You're giving them too much credit. I've heard literally that argument. You have no idea how far down that rabbit hole goes. I ended up in an argument a while back with a guy over the whole "privatize literally everything" angle that got into fire departments. He said it was reasonable to pay for fire insurance and if you don't pay then if your house catches fire the fire department doesn't try to put it out they just watch it burn and keep it from burning down anything nearby that actually is paid up. Which is insane on a lot of levels; especially considering that fire departments do far more than just put out fires. They also prevent them. Plus, well, there are some very strong historical arguments against private fire services. If you pay a fire department based on how many fires they put out you suddenly give them an incentive to run around starting fires. Then we get into the corrupt fire people in Rome that would just stand there and watch something burn unless you agreed to fire sale it (hence the term, I guess?). Only then would they save it and act like they were doing you a favor for letting you keep the pittance they paid for it. The same guy also said that fire fighters that sat around not fighting fires that day don't deserve to get paid because apparently being on call is a terrible thing? Last I checked that's kind of the point of having a few guys sitting around waiting for poo poo to go down. You pay them to be there right goddamned now the instant something goes wrong. If they're busy with other stuff they kind of can't do that. If that means sometimes they get to sit around and play cards in the fire station the entire day because nothing is going wrong then fine. Whatever.
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Nov 28, 2015 07:12
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ToxicSlurpee posted:You're giving them too much credit. I've heard literally that argument. From what I understand of the typical Libertarian, being "on call" means getting a call from your boss on your day off to work front end because Sally called in sick again today and we all know she's not really sick, just taking a day off so she can get drunk some more and gently caress that rear end in a top hat boyfriend of hers because she's a stupid bitch who doesn't see that you're such a nice guy and super smart Libertarian ubermensch; and you can't tell your boss no, because bossman already called Ms. Peters and she said 'no' and so did half a dozen other people she called, so you're it to come in and besides you were late twice this week and really should do something to make up for it, not like you've got any friends anyways and your mom is yelling at you because you spend too much time in your basement-room wasting money on LoL and other crap; and dammit, if it wasn't for the government, you'd be one rich motherfucker that those gold digging bitches like Sally wouldn't be able to keep their hands off, but you'd be able to show her what-for by telling her "no, gently caress you you bitch rear end muggle!" I think I put way too much thought into that.
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Nov 28, 2015 07:28
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ToxicSlurpee posted:You're giving them too much credit. I've heard literally that argument. I have too. Most I said. Most.
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Nov 28, 2015 07:34
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Cemetry Gator posted:So, we need to think about what is an aggressive action. And then we need to think about actions that aren't aggressive, per se, but could have serious and negative impacts on others. For example, I would argue that driving my car while intoxicated is not an aggressive action. A key element of aggression is that I'm intending to hurt someone, and I'm not trying to hurt anyone! I'm just trying to get home while drunk as gently caress. Well, we would want to ban that behavior because IT'S REALLY loving DANGEROUS AND IT IS A TERRIBLE IDEA AND IT COULD KILL PEOPLE! But... it's not aggressive. Again, everything is private property so landlords are free to ban DUI, and of course since people are rational beings acting in their enlightened self-interest it will be unprofitable to operate a road without DUI laws. Or maybe there will be two roads, one for DUI where everyone who drives on it accepts that liability. Libertarianism has tons more laws than just the NAP because everything is privately owned and private property rights are unlimited so manor lords get all the powers of feudalism and none of the obligations. And this is, of course, deliberate see how chubby they get over whites-only Christian covenant communities, child slavery markets, the right to shoot immigrants if they step across the border, revolutionary tribunals for Mitt Romney voters, etc Property rights is their big loophole to the NAP, where they can build in all kinds of violence and repression but it's not a violation of the NAP because you're on my property!
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Nov 28, 2015 10:52
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ToxicSlurpee posted:You're giving them too much credit. I've heard literally that argument. Didn't JRode, in fact, use just that argument at one point in the other thread? Or am I getting my Libertarians mixed up?
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Nov 28, 2015 10:58
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TLM3101 posted:Didn't JRode, in fact, use just that argument at one point in the other thread? Or am I getting my Libertarians mixed up? To be honest I think he's made both sides of that argument. Recklessly endangering people for no good reason violates NAP if you can prove it but at the same time I think he's also said the world is a dangerous place so nobody should expect safety. Pretty sure the safety one was also regarding firearms. Like the world is dangerous so it's a waste of time to try making it less dangerous? I guess?
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Nov 28, 2015 11:40
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I was listening to the BBC World Service on my way into work this morning and they were discussing in a group talk about genetic modification with regard to economic inequality, which got me to think about this thread again. Two questions: What is there to stop, given our economic system as it exists now and for the foreseeable future, a minority of genetic 'haves' and genetic 'have-nots'? In other words, one set of the population who can afford to scrub out debilitating genetic handicaps such as Crohn's disease/Down's syndrome/etc and the other segment to be left saddled with such conditions? Or, even further, to select for genetically superior traits to produce a group of privileged Michael Phelps-esque superathlete offspring to compete against the genetically underprivileged? Also, what's to prevent privileged parents from selecting for genetic disabilities (deafness, etc) for whatever reason? One of the speakers fell back on regulations/etc in the UK to prevent this sort of malselection, but what's to stop a 'no gubmint interference in my child rearing!' sadist from consulting with a less scrupulous doctor in, say, a foreign Libertopia that turns a blind eye on this so they can go back and put little Eygore-junior bastard child in their Josef Fritzl basement back home later to abuse? Why do future progeny have to suffer the consequences for something they weren't even around to voice their objections to in the usual "let others learn from your mistakes in dealing with Bad Faith Company" in Libertopia no regulations land logic? That's my inquiry for today, I appreciate the response, thank you.
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Nov 28, 2015 13:02
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Having kids at all seems like an initiation of force to me. Did little Jonny agree to be dragged into this world and imprisoned in the womb?
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Nov 28, 2015 13:14
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Your Dunkle Sans posted:I was listening to the BBC World Service on my way into work this morning and they were discussing in a group talk about genetic modification with regard to economic inequality, which got me to think about this thread again. For the first question, I am pretty sure we all know the answer because the consequences of a system based on unrestricted contractual consent has never bothered them. This is a slightly more exotic version of "what prevents rich people from becoming a new hereditary aristocracy and acting as feudal lords of vast company-town-sized fiefs," to which the answer is "ain't give a drat." Well, it is interesting in that it makes it harder to argue that True Free Market Competition will result in the position of the rich being unstable and subject to constant contestation by plucky proletarian entrepreneurs. Answers to the second question are going to be a mess because libertarians have no clear way of dealing with the weird edge case of "the reproduction of the human race" since children do not fit into their model of a society of autonomous rational actors capable of contractual consent. The range of arguments will probably have all the deftness of their takes on abortion. Then there is the fact that their answers here have implications for answers to the first question. Some possibilities: Option 1: The policy will vary by DRO and competition for customers will result in the most moral way of dealing with this emerging from market forces, as all the best things inevitably do. Basically a way of dodging the question. Can be mixed in with any other answer to smooth over any problematic implications they may have. Option 2: Explicitly call it an example of initiation of force as it hobbles someone by performing a medical procedure on them without their consent. This implicitly accepts the personhood of the unborn which may not actually be a problem since libertarian commitment to "social" or "personal" freedom is a facade. Rothbardian "eviction theory" of abortion is compatible with this so I expect that this may be the most popular argument. Interestingly, it may also prevent the scenario of the first question because by this logic one could argue that parents would not have the right to perform beneficial medical procedures on their unborn children either. For this reason I suspect the intelligentsia of the movement, in their infinite concern for the prerogatives of the plutocracy, to dispute that this is a logical corollary or find some way of arguing that it is OK to perform beneficial medical procedures on people without their consent, and then try to argue that this is consistent with their hand-wringing about, for example, laws mandating vaccination. Presumably it will vary by DRO, which amounts to the weak dodge of Option 1. Option 3: Contrived argument that although the unborn are not currently people, hobbling the future autonomous rational actors they will become is initiation of force. This is essentially Option 2 without implicitly accepting the personhood of the unborn. It has all sorts of sticky implications for how actions which are not violations of the NAP in the present should be considered as such due to their future impact on individuals. May also (like Option 2) complicate any hands-off approach to answers to the first question. Comedy Option 4: Take Susan Moller Okin's objections as not just valid but perfectly acceptable and double the gently caress down on them: children are effectively the homesteaded property of their parents (lol if you think libertarianism will let mothers have all the fun) who can do with their children whatever they please. We can only hope that they will be kind enough to not prenatally cripple their children-property, because it makes sense to base a system of justice on the presumption that people will just do the right thing. GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Nov 28, 2015 |
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Nov 28, 2015 15:33
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:I've never understood the Libertarian obsession in pretending their hypocrisy isn't hypocritical, rather than simply acknowledging their preferred system hasn't been implemented and they still need to function within the current system. No that's simple, lots of people who don't think/plan very well refuse to recognize or accept hypocrisy.
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Nov 28, 2015 15:58
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:I've never understood the Libertarian obsession in pretending their hypocrisy isn't hypocritical, rather than simply acknowledging their preferred system hasn't been implemented and they still need to function within the current system. These are people who have bought into a political ideology that's so defective from the base that they exist in a world of pure cognitive dissonance. I mean, look at Jrod and the arguments people have with him. He has no real understanding of what he's arguing for, so he's just spinning everything together to try and defend it against attacks. Well, what's the best way to build a strong wall? Do you have an idea of where you're going to put a wall and start trying to build it wherever people try to break on through, or do you build a good wall to begin with and then reinforce the areas where people try to break on through?
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Nov 28, 2015 16:59
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TLM3101 posted:Didn't JRode, in fact, use just that argument at one point in the other thread? Or am I getting my Libertarians mixed up? I don't know that Jrod's made that particular argument, but we did have a libertarian many years ago who's
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Nov 28, 2015 19:20
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Your Dunkle Sans posted:What is there to stop, given our economic system as it exists now and for the foreseeable future, a minority of genetic 'haves' and genetic 'have-nots'? In other words, one set of the population who can afford to scrub out debilitating genetic handicaps such as Crohn's disease/Down's syndrome/etc and the other segment to be left saddled with such conditions? Or, even further, to select for genetically superior traits to produce a group of privileged Michael Phelps-esque superathlete offspring to compete against the genetically underprivileged? Nothing. In our current society, there's currently nothing to stop the scenario that you've described from happening. We could prevent it by making those kinds of treatments free as part of a universal healthcare system. In libertopia, the scenario that you describe is a feature, not a bug Your Dunkle Sans posted:Also, what's to prevent privileged parents from selecting for genetic disabilities (deafness, etc) for whatever reason? One of the speakers fell back on regulations/etc in the UK to prevent this sort of malselection, but what's to stop a 'no gubmint interference in my child rearing!' sadist from consulting with a less scrupulous doctor in, say, a foreign Libertopia that turns a blind eye on this so they can go back and put little Eygore-junior bastard child in their Josef Fritzl basement back home later to abuse? Why do future progeny have to suffer the consequences for something they weren't even around to voice their objections to in the usual "let others learn from your mistakes in dealing with Bad Faith Company" in Libertopia no regulations land logic? Nothing-ish In many parts of the world, you could probably classify the intentional handicapping of children as a form of abuse. That's illegal in most places. If Libertopia is willing to do this poo poo anyway, then hopefully you can convince people to send in a military in order to stop those kinds of horrific human rights abuses from occurring. Yeah yeah, initiation of force but we're not libertarians, we're free to put a stop to that kind of hosed up bullshit. In libertopia, the scenario that you describe is a feature, not a bug
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Nov 28, 2015 20:21
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I kind of expected that, but I was curious about the kind of answers I'd get. Thanks again. Makes Libertopia seem kind of barbaric the more you dig into it, no? Curiously, said discussion participant was dodging the question on air by saying we already have inequality in ability to pay in today's healthcare schemes already so nothing would change with evolutions in healthcare technology. It's strange how despite advances in technology that should benefit us all, we keep seeing these changes as threats due to being filtered through archaic economic structures. Hm... Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Nov 28, 2015 |
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Nov 28, 2015 21:23
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